Conquistador Ski Resort

Conquistador opened in 1978 near Westcliffe with two surface lifts and little terrain. Many people in town opposed it, doubting the need for a ski area and pointing to thin snow. For the 1982 season it bought two new Doppelmayr chairlifts, a triple and a double. By 1984 it listed 15 trails, 1,200 feet of vertical below a 10,100-foot summit, a 6,000-square-foot base lodge and snowmaking it rated at 90 percent.^1,2,3

The new lifts never paid off. The owners lost the property to the Small Business Administration, and the government ran the area until it closed in 1988. Mund Shaikly of Los Angeles and Ray McEnhill of Salisbury, England, reopened it as Mountain Cliffe for 1992–93. Snow came late, a windstorm then stripped the open slopes, and the season ended early. It was the last. The next owners planned to reopen for 1996–97, but the Doppelmayr chairs were taken down in 1996 and sold to ski areas in Wyoming and Montana.^1,2,4

The base lodge and hotel became the Hermit Basin Conference Center. A surface tow for tubing went in for its retreat guests in 2003, and the Forest Service considered the ski area closed for the foreseeable future.¹

TodayThe old base lodge and hotel serve as the Hermit Basin Conference Center, which mostly hosts religious retreats. (2004)¹